The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to opportunistic extended channel uplink grants for ECC.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In contention based wireless communication systems, a listen before talk (LBT) procedure may be performed prior to transmission. For example, a device may perform one or more clear channel assessments (CCAs) on a channel by detecting a threshold energy level. In some cases, a transmitter may perform an extended CCA (eCCA) that includes multiple CCA measurements. In some networks, a base station may perform the eCCA to determine availability of a channel for uplink transmission by a user equipment (UE). That is, the base station may attempt eCCA on each channel, and send a grant for those channels that are available. However, this process may result in occasions where the UE is unable to transmit uplink data because the eCCA fails at the base station. This may delay transmissions or reduce the effective bandwidth of a channel.